Megha-Tropiques Data and Services at ICARE

Image credit: CNES

The Megha-Tropiques satellite was designed by the French (CNES) and Indian (ISRO) space agencies to study the water cycle and energy exchanges in the tropics.

The ICARE Data and Services Center is the scientific ground segment for the Megha-Tropiques mission. As such, it is responsible for the routine processing of the science products, using science codes provided by the French science team at IPSL. The ICARE Data and Services Center collects level-1 data of MADRAS, SAPHIR, and ScaRab from ISRO and distributes them to the public (See the Data Access section for data availability and access procedures). ICARE also collects level-1 data from geostationary satellites (MSG, GOES, MTSAT, FY2C) from SATMOS. ICARE processes level-2 and up Megha-Tropiques science products and makes them available in standard formats (HDF4, HDF5, or NetCDF, depending on product specifications). These products include precipitation, Water Vapor, Radiation, and Cloud classification products (See Data Access section).

The ICARE Data and Services Center is also responsible for archiving and distribution of the derived science products to the research community. Other services include code development and data-handling tools development, and production of browse images. Data products is freely available from ICARE web site for registered users. The ICARE web site enables user registration, provides data access and a variety of information about the mission and products.